Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WorldFAIR (Global cooperation on FAIR data policy and practice)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-06-01 bis 2023-02-28
Building on the insights from the FIPs exercises, the priority now for the project, and particularly the coordinating function led by CODATA, is the development of the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework. The Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF) is an emerging idea for a set of guidelines around domain-agnostic standards for supporting the implementation of interoperability and reusability of FAIR data, especially across domain- and institutional boundaries. The CDIF aims to provide a list of standards in a range of functional roles to support the next level of interoperability, but giving domains the “lingua franca” against which to map domain-specific standards and ontologies. Standards such as Schema.org DCAT, SKOS, PROV-O, and DDI-CDI, or protocols or emergent standards such as I-ADOPT, are being suggested. The functional roles include the description of units and measurements, the relation of variables to concepts and consistent descriptions of data structure. Two draft working documents, not deliverables, have been prepared during the reporting period (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7652742) and an Advisory Group and Working Group recruited to take the work forward.
On 20 March 2023, a workshop ‘The WorldFAIR Project’s cross-domain interoperability framework’ was held as a co-located event to the RDA Plenary meeting in Gothenburg. Attended by over 60 participants, in person and online, the workshop provided an opportunity to update the community on the objectives and methodology of the WorldFAIR project, the vision for CDIF as a lingua franca, and progress made by the Working Group in laying out functional activities, identifying candidate standards and the current priorities and subgroups.
As well as preparing FIPs, each of the WorldFAIR Case Studies have been pursuing their work to articulate FAIR requirements in their fields and propose recommendations and interoperability frameworks. A number of the Case Studies have undertaken engagement and consultation activities.
The first WorldFAIR Policy Brief makes presents a forceful argument for investment in FAIR practices, particularly data description and fine-grained metadata, to meet two important use cases: data integration or combination for cross-domain grand challenges, and more intelligent, active and fine-grained management of access to data containing some sensitive information. One of the mechanisms that can assist with this is the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework, which will be presented as a major WorldFAIR deliverable towards the end of the project.